As much as I’m a morning person, waking up isn’t always easy. Yes, it’s easier most days, especially at the beginning of the week, but some days it’s hard to wake up on time, no matter how many alarms I set. I’d hit snooze half-asleep, swiped away notifications, and promised myself “five more minutes”, only to wake up late and weak.
The standard phone alarm, while enough for some, just wasn’t cutting it for me. I needed something stricter to keep myself accountable. That’s when I discovered Alarmy, the app that completely changed the way I wake up. After ditching the default iPhone alarm clock for Alarmy, I’ve been waking up on time, every time, and mornings no longer feel like a losing battle. I wish I had discovered the app sooner.
The problem with standard alarms
Default clock apps are good enough for most, not perfect
The default clock apps are enough for most people, no doubt. You open the app, navigate to the Alarms tab, set up an alarm at the time of your choosing, customize a handful of options, and you’re good to go. However, if you’ve used them for a while and still struggle to wake up, you know they aren’t a perfect solution for several reasons.
First, the snooze button is just too easy to hit even when you’re half-asleep. And in that state, a quick tap feels like the perfect solution—until you wake up an hour or 30 minutes late. Even if you try to resist snoozing or turn the option off, there’s another catch: hearing the same alarm tone day after day makes your brain tune it out. Eventually, the sound that once jolted you awake becomes background noise.
Trust me, I’ve set an alarm at 4 AM only to wake up at 6 AM confused, wondering if my alarm even went off in the first place or if I missed it. And when I check my phone, I see a countdown to the next ring, meaning the alarm rang, and I only missed it.
If you’ve been in that situation before, your alarm might still have rang; your brain is just used to it. Another issue is that standard alarms demand almost no effort to dismiss. A single swipe or button press is enough to silence them, which means you can easily fall back asleep without realizing it. For heavy sleepers or chronic snoozers, these shortcomings add up to one outcome: oversleeping, no matter how many alarms you set.
How I discovered Alarmy
Thanks to the internet
After struggling with oversleeping for a while, I started to feel like I had tried every trick in the book. I set multiple alarms spaced five minutes apart and experimented with different alarm tones. Nothing worked because eventually, I’d snooze or switch them all off.
That’s when I started my search for the perfect alarm app that could be as annoying as possible. I searched across the web, and that’s how I stumbled across Alarmy. It was recommended by several people on Reddit, among other alternatives. I downloaded the two top recommendations and tried them both. In the end, Alarmy came out on top, and it’s been one of my go-to apps for a productive morning routine.
Download: Alarmy for Android | iOS (Free, subscription available)
The features that set Alarmy apart
What makes Alarmy different from the dozens of alarm apps out there is its focus on making sleeping in impossible by leveraging a number of features.
1. Missions
One of the key features Alarmy uses to make sure you wake up on time is missions. Missions in the app are little tasks that you must complete before the alarm stops. Completing these missions is the only way the app will let you swipe your alarm away. There are different kinds of missions in the app, divided into two categories: those that wake up your brain and those that wake up your body. Some of the missions for waking up your brain include math quizzes, typing challenges, and puzzles.
Missions for waking up your body include walking, scanning a QR code on your bathroom mirror, snapping a photo of something specific (like your toothbrush), shaking the phone a number of times, doing a set of squats, and more. And these missions can be stacked on top of each other, so you can set the app to have to go through multiple before it stops.
2. Loud volume
Even if you usually set your alarm volume to the maximum, it still can’t rival Alarmy. This app can get extremely loud. Even if you’re in deep sleep, you’ll find it hard to ignore. Sure, this can be frightening, and that’s why the app has a Gentle wake-up option where the volume of your alarm sound gradually increases for a couple of seconds until it reaches the maximum.
3. Wide variety of ringtones
While default alarm apps provide you with several sounds to choose from for your alarm, Alarmy takes it a notch higher. It doesn’t just include ringtones; it has a selection of songs, recorded sounds, and some internet sensations, like Marc Rebillet’s “Your new morning alarm”.
4. Wake up check
Alarmy acknowledges that while you can go through all the missions successfully, it’s tempting to go back to bed, especially if you slept late in the night. Using the Wake up check feature, Alarmy sends a silent notification after a specified time from the alarm time, then you have to click and confirm you’re up.
If you don’t, the alarm reactivates, and you have to go through the missions all over again to make sure you wake up. This one feature can save you up to an hour a day if you’re the type of person who, at times, returns to bed after waking up.
My Alarmy routine
My battle-tested routine works like a charm
As much as Alarmy tries to be as annoying as possible to help you get out of bed, what really makes Alarmy effective is how you set it up. Your routine makes all the difference. After trial-and-error, I’ve finally built a routine that guarantees I’m out of bed on time every morning. My alarm is set at 6 AM, but instead of a simple ring, it triggers several missions.
The first is a math mission where I have to solve three questions to get my brain up and running. The second is a photo mission where I have to take a picture of my toothbrush holder with a toothbrush inside. Finally, the third one is to do ten squats.
To make sure I don’t snooze, I have the snooze feature turned off. I’ve also enabled the Extra loud effect option so that, no matter what, I can hear the alarm ring. Because of the latter, I’ve also enabled Gentle wake-up, so the alarm gradually increases the volume for 60 seconds when it’s ringing, because, as noted before, Alarmy can get extremely loud. I do so to ensure I’m not instantly blasted with alarm sounds at the maximum volume, which can be horrifying.
Another handy option in my routine is Wake up check, which I’ve set five minutes after my alarm goes off to make sure I haven’t gone back to bed. Otherwise, my alarm reactivates, and I have to go through the missions again.
Waking up has never been easier thanks to Alarmy
I struggled to wake up on time some days. However, after switching to Alarmy, I realized the real issue was relying on standard alarms that made it too easy to fail. I could just swipe the alarm away, only to wake up minutes or hours late. I fell into this trap mostly on Thursdays to Saturdays, but with Alarmy, I wake up on time every single day.
Thanks to its loud sounds, clever missions, ringtones, and customizable routines, Alarmy turns waking up into something I can’t ignore, no matter how tired I feel. If you’ve tried every trick and still struggle to wake up, Alarmy might be the solution you need. Waking up won’t be easier, but Alarmy pushes you to stick to your schedule.
